New Sight (25 page)

Chapter 31

“Anything?”
Mr. Mason asked.

Lys didn’t answer. She tried not to notice how far below her the bottom of the canyon sat. Stacks of orange, red, and white rocks lay below the precipice where she stood. She closed her eyes. The magic stirred. Her board appeared and she poked a hole in it. Golden energy shot into her mind, and Lys opened her eyes.

The layers of rock below twisted. An invisible paintbrush took the colors and pulled them across the landscape between where Lys stood and the arch. To her amazement, a path appeared—the end of it just a few feet below the edge of the cliff.

“I see it,” she said.

“Good girl,” Mr. Mason said, patting her on the shoulder.

“I don’t see anything,” someone complained.

Lys looked around. “Can anyone else see it?”

Everyone shook their heads.

“Can you step onto it?” Mr. Mason asked.

“Sure.” Lys swallowed hard. “It’s a few feet down.” She sidled closer to the edge

“Here.” Ayden offered her a hand.

Lys grabbed Ayden’s hand and hoped he would forgive her for crushing his fingers. She tried to ignore the empty air below the path as she stepped to the edge and lowered one leg off. Toes grasping, Lys reached out, and the moment she touched the stone a buzz of magic filled her mind.

Someone behind them gasped. “Wow.”

“Extraordinary,” Mr. Mason whispered. “The path spreads from wherever you touch it.”

Lys sat on the cliff edge and put her other foot down. Ayden kept a hold of her hand as she shifted all of her weight on the new path.

“You okay?” Ayden asked.

She nodded. “Can you see it now?”

“I can see it,” Ayden said. “It’s growing, moving to the arch.”

“I can see the whole thing.” Lys let go of Ayden’s hand and took a tentative step forward. The winding, rock path was just wide enough for two people to walk next to each other on. She leaned over the side, trying to see if it connected to the ground. As far as she could tell, it floated above the canyon floor, supported in only a few places by thin rock pillars that hadn’t been there a moment before.

“Can everyone see that?” Mr. Mason asked.

“How is it there?” someone asked. “Is it an illusion?”

“No,” Mr. Mason said. “It resides in the magical realm of this world. Physically it may not exist in ours.”

Lys turned back and saw everyone looking at Mr. Mason with raised eyebrows or thoughtful scowls.

“Magical realm?” Genni voiced the question.

Mr. Mason nodded, studying the path below Lys’s feet. “The two are together in the same place, but they do not use the same space.”

“How can that be?” someone asked.

Mr. Mason shook his head. “I’m not sure. There are gates through which we can enter. Magic users of old would say they slipped into the magical realm. There are only a few places where it still exists so substantially. The outlets are some of them. More gates will return after we free the magic.”

“Is it dangerous?” a man asked.

“No,” Mr. Mason said. “As magic wielders, it should feel familiar to you.”

“Can
we
walk on it?” Ayden asked, squinting down at the path.

Mr. Mason smiled at him. “Why don’t you find out?”

Ayden took a deep breath
and sat down on the edge of the cliff. Groping with his foot, he didn’t let the air out of his lungs until his toe scraped the path. After a moment, he gingerly lowered the other foot and put all his weight on his legs. A smile spread across his face as he let go of the cliff wall.

“Feels solid.”

“Good,” Mr. Mason said, pointing at the group. “You two go first. Put Lys right behind you.”

Two men climbed down, one of them shaking a little. Lys and Ayden held on to them as they passed. The longer she stood on the path the more giddy the thin ribbon of magic that she had let out made her feel. She wanted to shut it off, but if the path disappeared for her, would anyone be able to see it? The last thing she wanted was to have everyone fall to their deaths because of her.

Lys felt someone take her hand from behind. Heights didn’t really bother her, but she decided that she didn’t mind the contact, even if the illusion that it would help her stay on the path was a lie. She reached out and took the trembling man’s hand in front of her. He immediately clung on.

They moved slowly. Lys risked a glance back and found that the young girl with the hijab was walking right behind her. The rest of their party trailed along like a snake, winding on top of the rock ribbon. Druid Arch got steadily closer even though the path took an indirect course.

Below them, the rock pillars rose, creating spikes that waited for someone to fall on them. Lys shook her head, trying to clear the image from her mind. No one would fall. They would all make it to the arch in one piece. Never mind the fissures—glowing gold—that spread across the path just ahead.

She started to warn everyone, but a cracking noise erupted in front of them. Before she knew it, the first man in the line disappeared in a shower of rock chips. A huge chunk of the path followed.

“No!” Lys cried. Faster than she could follow, the man in front of her let go of her hand and lunged forward, catching his friend by the wrist. With super human strength, he flung the other man over the gap, where he landed twenty feet away on his hands and feet, like a spider.

The rock kept crumbling, the edge coming toward Lys. The man in front of her backed up, herding Lys with his arms. “Move!” he yelled.

Lys bumped into the girl behind her. She felt the line jam up as they moved back.

“Toss them!” the man on the far side yelled.

Golden cracks appeared under Lys’s feet, causing the stone to chip.

“It’s still coming!” she said.

Before she could protest, the man had her by the waist. Lys left the ground and she flew through the air.

The moment Lys’s feet lost contact with the path, it began to get fuzzy. Lys screamed, hurtling toward the touch user who was on the other side. He jumped, and the path became translucent. Lys expected a messy collision, but the man caught her gently.

Without a path, they were all going to fall.

The man maneuvered Lys so her feet came down first, and the path solidified beneath Lys’s feet. The man crashed down beside her, and they both went sprawling.

Lys rolled. Her legs dangled out over the air—she scrambled, trying to get a hand hold on something, anything. As fingers brushed the opposite edge of the path, Lys grabbed hold, lying with the top half of her body on the path and the other half in the air.

The man who saved her skidded to a stop—one hand holding firmly to the edge.

“Stay there,” the man said to Lys.

More cracks appeared around Lys. The layered rock under her stomach crumbled.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

A terrified scream cut through the air. Lys’s attention was drawn to the other half of the group. They’d backed up into a crowd, two people dangling off the edge and another being pulled up by Genni.

“Keep Lys on the path!” Mr. Mason bellowed. “Don’t let her lose contact with it!”

That could be a problem, she decided. Each edge she touched started to give way under the pressure of her grip or her weight. She scrambled up until she had her knees on the narrow path. The touch user still dangled by one hand.

“Get behind me!” he said. “This section is going to collapse.”

“But,” Lys said, crawling toward him.

“I can get up, just get on the other side of me,” he insisted. “Keep touching it.”

Shaking so hard her head hurt, she went past the man. When she reached a spot where the path met a needle, she stopped and turned around.

The others had climbed up. The man with her now knelt on the stone, slowly backing toward her.

“Be ready to help people when they get here,” he said.

“They’re going to toss them?” Lys asked.

The question answered itself as Lys saw Ayden flying across the gap. Terror twisted his face, and his lips parted in a silent scream. The touch user stood and caught Ayden’s arms and twirled him around like a little kid, setting him right in front of Lys.

Ayden teetered. Lys reached out and grabbed him, pulling him back. The next person sailed at them.

“How will the last person get across?” Lys asked, helping Ayden steady Neil as he landed.

“Some of the touch users can jump pretty far,” Ayden said noncommittally.

Lys watched in fascination as Genni—it took her a minute to figure out that the slight woman was the one tossing people—got everyone across. Lys kept stepping back, making room for people to land.

When everyone was across, Lys glanced over her shoulder. They didn’t have far to go.

“We should get moving,” Mr. Mason said.

“What about Genni?” Lys asked.

He shook his head. “She can’t make that jump.”

“We’re just going to leave her?”

Mr. Mason frowned. “You have to enter the path through the gate. Once she leaves it, she won’t be able to get back.”

Genni stepped off the path and fell. Lys cried out, but Genni landed on the ground below with a gentle thud. She waved and yelled, “Good luck!”

Ayden waved back. Lys noticed that he looked worried.

“Come on,” Mr. Mason said. “We need to get to that arch.”

The remaining section of the path stayed stable. Lys and the others moved quickly toward Druid Arch. When they got within a hundred feet, Lys noticed the arch had changed. Before it looked two dimensional, practically flat. Now Lys thought it may have been an optical illusion because the arch was no longer a squashed “M”. It now resembled a tripod with three legs that all came together at a blunt point five hundred feet above them.

“The arch. It’s changed,” she said to Ayden.

He glanced up. “It doesn’t look different to me. But you’re the sight user.”

Lys saw movement. From the shadows between the tripod legs, four figures emerged. “There are people in there!”

“I see them,” Ayden said, frowning.

The touch users in front of Lys tensed, and she saw one of them pull a small club out of their jacket.

“Hold on,” one of the neutrals said. “They’re with us. I can hear them,” he added in explanation.

The figures waved. Ayden and a few others waved back.

“How did they get up here?” Lys asked.

“Mason sent a sight user with them,” Ayden explained. “He wasn’t sure what they were going to run into.”

When Lys and the others reached the base of the arch, the four magic users helped them off the path and onto the roughly hewn rock stairs that led the rest of the way. Ayden exchanged a few words with one of the men about the collapsed path, but Lys didn’t bother to listen. The towering stones had her full attention.

Standing at the base of the arch, Lys felt like a familiar tug, like she’d spent time here as a kid, but she couldn’t remember the details. The rocks shot into the sky—impressive in their own right. Dark streaks stained them, as if the stone itself wept. The smooth ground beneath the arch sloped gently down to a lower center point. Lys looked up and could see a small hole situated at the pinnacle. Well, it looked small from here, but the hole itself could be as wide as she was tall.

Gold tendrils of magic reached down from the hole, wrapped through the stone, and continued to the ground. Once they reached the bowl, the vine-like magic followed the circumference of the depression, spiraling downward into the center.

She looked around in wonder. The magic ebbed through the stone, lapping at her feet like the ocean brushing a sandy beach. She could see every crack in the rocks and every ray of sunshine that penetrated the arch. The light seemed to linger in the arch, giving the entire scene an unearthly glow. The place felt alien, but it also felt like home.

“Alright everyone,” Mr. Mason said. “Those I sent ahead only found four of the New here—good thing we learned a little bit about their suits. We know that there are plenty more on the way. The rest of you, keep your eyes open and keep the neutrals safe. Neutrals, drop your packs and get a drink. It’s time.”

Chapter 32

Lys didn’t
have much in her pack. She shrugged it off, hardly noticing the lightening of her load. The other neutrals did the same, setting their bags around the edge of the huge arch leg. Lys took another drink before placing the canteen on the ground. What happened next?

“I think you’ll find your places around the bowl.” Mr. Mason pointed.

Lys and Ayden stepped toward the center of the depression. Being a sight user, Lys understood how she could see the magic embedded in this place, but she wondered what the others could see. Or if they felt the magic in their own sense, like Ayden talked about earlier.

“What are we looking for?” Ayden asked, addressing his question to Mr. Mason.

“You’ll know it when you find it.” Mr. Mason stood on the far side of the bowl, smiling at them.

“That means he doesn’t know,” Ayden muttered to Lys under his breath.

“Can you see the magic here?” she asked.

Ayden shook his head as they slowly walked around the bowl. “No, I can’t see it, I can smell it.”

“What does it smell like?” Lys made a face. For some reason she couldn’t imagine that the raw energy she could see smelled very good.

Ayden stopped. He closed his eyes and inhaled. “It smells like power.”

“It feels alive,” the touch user said. He knelt down and stroked the stone with his hand. “Alive and excited.”

“What does it look like?” Ayden asked.

Lys let the scene ingrain itself into her memory. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “The magic is like vines made of light, wrapping around and going through the stones.” She pointed. “I think it starts in the bowl and goes up through to the top.”

The magic pulsed and Lys saw what they were looking for. “Right there,” she pointed. “Ayden, I can see the symbol of an eye, just like in the book.” Lys walked over and stood on the eye. The magic surged beneath her, tickling the soles of her feet.

Ayden moved to the spot on Lys’s right and stopped. “Oh, yeah, I can sense that now.”

The young girl moved on the other side of Lys. She stood silently, waiting. Lys could see the symbol of an ear right in front of her feet.

They gathered close to the center of the bowl. Close enough to reach out and touch fingers. The other two found their places. They waited.

Mr. Mason moved in, circling them.

“Join hands,” he said. “Be prepared to keep tight control on your magic. It will use you as a channel.”

Lys felt a lump form in her throat. Could she keep control over her magic? The tiny stream seemed manageable, sort-of, but if they needed more, she didn’t know what would happen. She took a breath and reminded herself that she wanted this. This would help a lot of people, including her and her mother and any other innocent magic users that the New would hunt and kill.

Slowly, the five around the circle joined hands. As soon as the last two hands touched, Lys felt a surge of power—like the revving of a big engine in a truck—go through her body. Her mind tingled and she blinked as her sight went first fuzzy and then brighter than the sun reflecting off the ocean. The light from the bottom of the bowl increased in intensity. Lys could just make out an intricate symbol that resembled a tree carved into the rock.

“Don’t break the circle.” Mr. Mason ordered. “Can everyone sense the symbol in the middle?” They nodded. “Good, now try to reach out with your magic. Focus on the symbol.”

Lys had to close her eyes. The light made it impossible for her to concentrate. Even behind her eyelids, Lys could see the flickering magic. She took a deep breath and doubled the size of the hole in her board. More wanted to come, pressing against the barrier.

“Neil, Lys, we’re not balanced. I need more from you,” Mr. Mason said.

Nothing got done if you never tried anything, right? Lys took another breath and doubled the size of the hole again.

Images exploded in her mind. The brightest came from the people watching her. Different perspectives overlapped, and Lys could see herself from almost every angle. For the first time, she felt like she could handle it. It could be because of their scant numbers. Maybe she could do this.

A crack appeared in her board. It started at the hole and ripped through the void, releasing a river of magic that Lys was helpless to contain. Thousands more images filled her mind, some of them so alien that she wanted to scream. This time she knew she was seeing through the eyes of animals, bugs, birds, or whatever was close. Colors she’d never seen came with some of the perspectives, along with images she couldn’t understand at all. Some showed her only darkness.

“That’s better,” Mr. Mason said.

She had to stay like this? Lys didn’t believe she could. The magic roared in her ears and burned her closed eyes. Her mind wouldn’t be able to keep up for long—this would drive her insane.

“When you get in balance, concentrate on that symbol.”

Balance? There was no balance here! Lys wanted to tell him, but her lips wouldn’t respond.

“Redirect it,” Ayden said.

Lys pressed her lips together and concentrated on the magic beneath her. She thought back to Mark’s lesson and tried to redirect her magic through those vines and into the symbol in the stone. She opened her eyes. The light around her flashed as her magic bent—the tendrils flaring as they inherited more power. The stone pulsed, matching Lys’s beating heart.

“Good,” Mr. Mason said after a moment. “Now concentrate on that symbol and pull.”

The words didn’t make sense, but Lys knew what to do. She reached out through the streams of magic and sunk into the symbol, like sticking her hand into a bowl of cookie dough and squeezing. The plug shuddered as the others did the same. They pulled, tearing the stone apart and flinging the pieces aside.

Lys expected the plug to be gone. The only symbol she’d seen in the book was the tree. But beneath that lay the scrawl of runes and the representation of a tongue.

Neil, the taste user furrowed his brow and closed his eyes. The vines of energy beneath him started to get brighter, and a moment later a halo of golden energy surrounded him.

“Do it,” Mr. Mason said.

Neil nodded but didn’t open his eyes. His skin started to glow and his hair stirred, as if a breeze had wandered through the arch. Lys tore her eyes away and glanced down at the runes. Tiny cracks appeared, expanding as if the stone itself were drying out and crumbling to dust. The breeze picked up, turning into a gale force wind. The remnants of the plug got caught up and carried away like leafs in the fall. Neil sagged, and if not for the others holding onto him, he may have gone to the ground. Sweat beaded his brow, and his swirling, golden eyes looked hollow—almost dead.

Below the taste runes lay the symbol of an ear. Sound. Lys shifted her feet and glanced around. Did they each get a layer? What was she supposed to do when her turn came?

Mr. Mason walked around the circle and stopped behind the young girl. “You can do this.”

She nodded, and Lys felt the girl’s grip tighten.

Lys watched in fascination as the vines between the girl and the plug pulsed with the thrum of magic. Like blood through veins, the power diverted to the girl, and like the man before her, she started to glow. The effect was beautiful, but as Lys’s fingers got crushed beneath the girls grip, she was sure that whatever was happening to the girl was not pleasant.

“A little more,” Mr. Mason said.

The girl started to tremble. Lys could feel raw power building beside her, and had to force herself to stay in her spot. The song from the magic called to her, and Lys wasn’t sure she could resist.

We shouldn’t do this,
a voice said in Lys’s head.

Mr. Mason stepped closer to the girl, his lips just inches from her ear. For moment he said nothing, just stood there. The girl shook her head once before she stiffened. Then opened her eyes and nodded.

“Do it,” Mr. Mason said.

A sonic boom—at least that’s the only way Lys could describe it—emanated from the outlet. It rocked the very air around them, and the plug shattered into a million pieces, too small to see anymore.

The glow around the girl faded, and she stumbled.

“Keep her up,” Mr. Mason said to the others.

Lys hardly heard him. Instead she stood staring down at the plug. Despite the water she’d just drunk, Lys’s mouth went dry, and her heart missed a beat or two.

An eye. The symbol of an eye surrounded by more runes sat carved in the stone at her feet.

What was she supposed to do?

“Lys,” Mr. Mason said, now behind her. “You need to take all the magic from the plug into yourself, then release it. That will break the seal.”

Take it in? Release it? Lys shook her head. This didn’t sound like a good idea.

Without warning, the power started toward her. The magic streams shifted, and the ones coming in her direction got brighter. She watched without breathing as the first wave reached out for her feet.

Lys already felt like a water bottle with a hole in the bottom. The magic she’d been channeling poured through her, and she didn’t think she could handle much more.

“Do not release it,” Mr. Mason said in her ear. “Let it build up inside of you.”

Lys’s throat closed, and she swallowed hard as she looked around. Everyone but the girl beside her was watching her, waiting. The young girl had her head down, and Lys thought she might be crying.

The magic forced her to act before she wanted to. It blasted through her body like a bullet. Out of reflex, she shut down the outlet she’d been holding open. Golden power started to fill her from the soles of her feet, up to her knees, and then her hips. It felt a thousand times stronger than a roaring sugar high. Lys couldn’t stop shaking, and part of her didn’t want to. It felt so good!

There weren’t words or thoughts to describe it. Satisfying the Need—the frog’s eyes—paled in comparison, like the light and warmth of a match versus the blazing sun beating down on you in the desert. Every bit of her body tingled in pleasure and joy. Kamau’s kiss couldn’t ignite one nerve ending like this did. She was on fire, but the burning caused pure ecstasy.

“Keep taking it in,” Mr. Mason’s voice said from about a hundred miles away.

Lys didn’t much care what he said, all she cared about was how she felt. How much power she had! She closed her eyes and reveled in it flowing through her veins alongside her blood, as if it should have been there all along. Mark had said that magic was part of her, and now she believed him.

Up through her chest, then down her arms and to her fingertips, the magic filled her to capacity. Lys felt her skin start to tighten up, like a balloon right before it burst from too much pressure.

“A little more,” Mr. Mason said.

Lys would take all that the magic would give her. Her scalp tingled as the last unoccupied space filled with magic. The world around her sang.

“Now, release it,” Mr. Mason said.

Release it? Lys shook her head.

“Release it before it consumes you,” Mr. Mason said.

Lys didn’t care if the magic consumed her. That sounded like a great idea.

“Do it now,” he said.

The smell of her house filled her nostrils. It got past the song and poked a part of her brain that still cared about something besides magic. Memories of her parents, her friends, and growing up flashed through her mind.

“If you want to see them again, you need to release it.”

Dark thoughts of her parents being hurt or her friends dying—nightmares she’d had as a kid—flew at her, and Lys mentally shook herself, putting some distance between her and the magic.

She could still see through the others’ eyes, and Lys found herself glowing twice as bright as either the taste user or the young girl. More images of fear kept her lucid, and Lys looked for a place to punch a hole in herself.

At first she couldn’t find a spot—her skin providing a barrier stronger than rock or steel. Panic started to set in as her heart throbbed in her chest. Her chest. Lys concentrated on her belly button and wormed her way through until she found a thin spot. With all of her mental might, she threw herself at the weakened bit. The first attempt failed, and she bounced back.

The magic continued to fill her, and Lys could feel her body and spirit becoming overloaded. She tried again, ramming the spot as hard as she could. It cracked, but did not break.

She conjured up a wicked looking knife. It dropped into her hand. She took a proverbial breath and stabbed the spot, ripping through it like a pirate did with a sail. The knife penetrated the wall, and Lys pulled it down, releasing all of the magic she could, straight out her belly button.

The plug burst apart, the remnants rising up and through the top of the arch.

The rune disappeared, as did all sense of sanity.

Lys no longer only saw
through the eyes of those close to her; now she could see everything. She didn’t know how, but she knew that’s what it was. The world lay around her, above her, below her, and inside of her. She saw families having picnics at the park, soldiers fighting in the jungle, people working in cities, and farmers tilling their fields.

Magic, the light from the portal, overwhelmed the world. She saw it come from all directions, touching everyone, leaving nothing unaffected in its wake. Lys tried to cry out, to warn them, but she had no voice. Only her eyes. She was forced to watch.

A man in Tokyo fell to his knees, screaming and writhing. The eyes Lys saw through ran toward him. The man looked up, his face contorted in anguish. His eyes swirled black. Lys’s perspective changed. She now watched a little boy running toward his father, who held out his arms to keep the boy away. Magic flamed from his hands, cutting everything they were pointed at in two, including the little boy.

The scene changed. A man with a camera in a helicopter watched as a woman ran up the side of a volcano. Every step she took left behind puddles of molten lava. When she looked up at the camera, Lys saw that her eyes were churning, burning red. The woman tore her gaze from the helicopter and threw herself into the volcano. Before they could get out of the way, a geyser of lava as big as a sky scraper engulfed the helicopter and everyone on board.